Abterra Biosciences Gains Investments
Abterra Biosciences joined The Brink SBDC in July 2018, utilizing several services such as one-on-one consulting and participating in Brink events. Since then, they have experienced significant growth and success.
In February 2021, they were awarded two National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants to further develop aspects of their technology for analyzing immune responses for therapeutic antibody discovery. The next month, they graduated from JLABS into their own lab space at the San Diego Science Center.
The Brink made connections for Abterra Biosciences to angel investors, networks, and funds up and down the West Coast.
“I’ve found The Brink SBDC to be immensely useful – with diverse programming such as webinars and one-to-one mentorship to help understand the basics of running our business. That led us right to The San Diego Angel Conference Entrepreneur Track which significantly accelerated our seed fundraising.”
– Natalie Castellana, CEO of Abterra Biosciences
In March of 2021, Abterra Biosciences competed in the 3rd San Diego Angel Conference (SDAC) and became a finalist, winning $106,000. Castellana admits, “We were starting from zero in terms of fundraising strategy and pitch deck fundamentals.”
Local Angel Conference Spurs Growth
Prior to competing from September to December, participating companies attend events in the San Diego Angel Conference Entrepreneur Track to develop and refine their pitch, and prepare their company to present to investors from January to March. The E-track is also open to students and non-participating companies to learn about the process of preparing a company for angel investing.
The annual SDAC finale occurs in March and is open to the public to attend. Attendees may network, the seven finalists present their pitch, and the winner is be announced.
To Castellana, “The E-track addressed a lot of gaps in our knowledge from selecting milestones to valuation and pitch deck construction.”
The Journey to Successes
After the San Diego conference, The Brink – which is hosted at the University of San Diego – connected Abterra Biosciences to the Seattle Angel Conference for more funds. Taking what they learned and experienced from SDAC III, along with The Brink’s advice, Abterra competed in the 19th Seattle Angel Conference in May 2021. They won the conference and Audience Favorite Award out of 81 U.S. start-up companies, earning an additional $225,000 investment.
Although they’ve encountered much success, it was not always a smooth road to their accomplishments. Transitioning from academic scientists to building a biotech company presented many challenges for their business. “We had to relearn how to communicate what we were doing for our customer segment, build a sales and marketing process, and fundraise,” explains Castellana.
In addition to funding assistance from The Brink’s one-one-one consulting, Abterra Bio was able to reframe the features of their technology to benefit their customers, rather than features they thought were innovation. In turn, this directly contributed to their revenue growth.
The momentum continued. The Brink team helped craft Abterra Bioscience’s value proposition and formalize a sales process. Going one step further, The Brink boosted their marketing efforts by contributing to screening and recruiting their first dedicated sales and marketing team member.
From Funding and Publications to Transforming Cancer Treatment
In addition to a new marketing manager, they hired a senior bioinformatic scientist, with a total of nine team members.
“We made a systematic effort to improve our sales and marketing, and achieve enormous growth in sales between 2019 and 2020,” asserts Castellana.
Between quarter 1 of 2020 to quarter 1 of 2021, Abterra Biosciences has 90% growth in revenue and is continuing to accelerate their success. “We have some exciting publications coming out soon, and will have more coming out as a direct result of our expanding capabilities and ongoing pilot projects,” she remarks.
Abterra continues to grow quickly and is excited for their next move. With the SBIR awards and seed fundraising, they’re building a drug discovery platform that will transform cancer treatment.
“You can’t beat the access to experts in business development that The Brink provides, and with no strings attached,” says Castellana.
More About Abterra Biosciences
Abterra Biosciences, formerly Digital Proteomics, is a CRO (contract research organization) that utilizes next-generation sequencing, mass spectrometry, and machine learning methods to map the antibody response and quickly identify better therapeutic antibodies.* They were founded in 2009 by Dr. Pavel Pevzner and Dr. Vineet Bafna whose expertise created the algorithmic foundation the products and services were built upon.
*Therapeutic antibodies are biopharmaceuticals used to help the body fight cancer, infection, or other diseases.
Register for the SDAC IV E-Track
Contact:
Rhoda Sabatchi
sbdc@sandiego.edu
619-260-4547
